


I’d Be Yours, If You’d Be Mine

by leobrat



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blackwater, Could Possibly Never Combust Slow, F/M, Old School Romance Novel Tropes, Road Trip, Seriously very slow burn, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-01-11 01:25:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18419951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leobrat/pseuds/leobrat
Summary: She has to go there, she has to *go*. There will be no easy path. (Or, Sansa goes with the Hound after the Blackwater.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, first thing is first: this is not complete. I started writing this for NaNo 2018 and it stalled somewhere around 20k words (more because of life events, not interest in the story). I LOVED writing this and at the risk of sounding...whatever, I actually loved my writing in this. I just didn’t want to let this story go. So I’m posting what I have at least and maybe the final days of this canon will spur me into finishing it. Updating (at least to what I already have) should go fairly quickly.

“I’ll keep you safe. Do you want to go home?”

_Home._

The word chokes her, suffocates her from the inside out, how much the thought of snow and cold winds can make her feel warm inside. How she’s dreamt of home, of Winterfell, of waking up under furs in the bed she’d lain in since she was born, and all of it would be over. King’s Landing, and Joffrey, and the Queen, and beatings, and threats, and the memory of her father’s head rolling at her feet. Maybe it would all be a dream if she could just be _home_ again.

But that Winterfell doesn’t exist any more. All of her family is gone; dead, or scattered to the winds and she cannot pretend any more. She was allowed to go on pretending for far too long, and look where that has gotten her. The Sansa Stark who grew up on such fairy tales doesn’t exist any more either.

Sansa opens her mouth, desperately wanting to say yes, to scream it, and she clutches her doll more tightly, knuckles turning white in her grip. “I’ll be safe here,” she swallows, knowing that neither of theum believe her lie, not for a moment. “Stannis won’t hurt me.”

He moves so suddenly, at once a great hulking beast sprung out of the shadows, and she flinches without him touching her. The crude, burnt side of his mouth twists into a sneer, and Sandor Clegane, the King’s hound, has never looked more feral to her. She can smell ash and the strong odor of sweat and blood. The smell of violence, surrounded by fear. He has felt real fear tonight, which she finds oddly, surprisingly comforting. 

“Look at me!” 

He’d said that to her once before, and she’d barely been able, and now she finds she can’t look away. He has leaned over at the waist, bending to look her right in the eye, and all she can see in his is a grey storm, wild and raging.

“Stannis is a killer. The Lannisters are killers. Your father was a killer.” That last stings fresh, as does any time he is mentioned but the Hound doesn’t stop. “Your brother is a killer. Your sons will be killers some day. The world is build by killers.” He sniffs and draws back up to his full height, towering over her. “So you’d better get used to looking at them.” There is a plea in his voice, an edge of desperation, as he imparts this bit of wisdom which Sansa has already begun to know, but clarity settles over her with these words.

“You won’t hurt me.” Her voice shakes. Not out of fear, but beautiful realization. She cannot go home to the Winterfell of her childhood, nor can she close her eyes in King’s Landing and wake up in the North. She has to _go there_ , she has to _go_. There will be no easy path.

“No, little bird, I won’t hurt you,” his answer is a tired resignation. He turns and she squeezes the doll her father gave her one more time.

_“Wait!”_

***

It is a sort of fevered madness that allows for Sandor to move throughout the night, and only as the first rays of dawn creep over the horizon, does he begin to feel cold dread at what he’s done.

He only barely remembers secreting through the castle, away from all shadow and murmur, his hand clasped so tightly around his little bird’s wrist there had been pale yellow marks when he’d lifted her onto Stranger’s back. He’d taken a moment to curse himself - _you won’t hurt me_ \- before swinging up behind her and kicking his horse into a hard gallop. They’d encountered no one. He was the only person craven and stupid enough to try to flee the city during an attack.

Sansa bounces along softly in front of him, her head lolling on his chest and he realizes she has fallen asleep. How she managed to do that he doesn’t know. He is so on edge- still choking on the smell of burnt flesh, still tasting blood where he’d torn one of Stannis’s men’s ears off with his teeth, and the sharp, keening awareness coursing through him from where her hip is pressed into him- that he thinks he will never sleep again. He had told the king to fuck himself and then stolen his intended away in the dead of night. What end can this bring them other than his head separated from his shoulders and as for her…

He had professed to keep her safe. There was nowhere safe for Sansa Stark, least of all with him.

Whatever else he had in him, whatever softness he lacked, he was absolutely unmistakable, his ridiculous size and damned face. There would be few places he could hide. 

Sansa stirs against him, her hair shaking out over his Kingsguard cloak and he urges Stranger on faster. When she’d reached out to stop him in her room at the Red Keep, she’d had nothing save for her pale blue gown and thin silk slippers. He’d wrapped her in his cloak which was a dull, ashy gray in the cleanest parts and streaked absolutely black with grime in others. There was blood drying in spots, but it was heavy and warm and it kept her hidden away from the world, as best he could.

But this hair…

Sandor remembers sunlight streaming through the throne room in the Red Keep, glinting off the red plaits wound around her head in intricate crowns, tailing off to lay across her slender neck, while she meekly apologized to the king for things she could not possibly be responsible. The light would find the threads of gold in the crimson, rendering it flame. Her hand tucks under her cheek, pillowing across his chest and the slim fingers seem to grip him like a vise.

Her hair, her neck, her tiny hands and delicate face...this was all he’d seen of her. And it had been enough for him to take himself in his hand more times than he can count, rub himself raw and spill over himself, gulping air and sweat running down his brow as though he’d been at battle. 

No, this hair would not do.

*

Sansa wakes up with a jolt, her whole body stiff and sore, especially her rump and thighs. The firm, solid pressure at her back was gone and she sees that the Hound has jumped down to the ground and is reaching back up for her. She had been frightened of him once, his size and strength, his cruelty, and would shrink back from any possibility of touching him. Over the past several hours, he’s handled her, far more familiarly than he would have dared, and she is surprised to find herself reaching back for him, anxious for the security being near him brought. She almost topples when her feet hit the ground, half numb from the night’s ride, and once she steadies herself, she blinks her eyes to take in where they have stopped.

They had crossed the city limits of King’s Landing quite some time ago and were far off the beaten path of the King’s Road. There was no reason to stop here, but there was a large cottage, with several wings running off into the woods and a few smaller shacks in the back. There was a stone well in front of the largest dwelling, and Sansa eyes it with want, her throat dusty and dry, but the Hound takes her hand in his, dwarfing her with his size and pulls her around to the back, leading his horse with the other hand. In the back, Sansa could see that the large cottage was arranged into smaller apartments, each with their own entrance. The Hound stops at the last one, knocking at the door softy with the backs of his knuckles.

After a moment, a tiny girl of five or six pulls the door back. She’s beautiful, golden brown curls and warm brown eyes, and dressed plainly in a burlap sack with bare feet on the rough planked floor. She stares up at the big man, towering in the door with eyes rounded in curiosity, and Sandor stares back. Sansa wonders if he has ever spoken to a child.

“Amarei! You know yer not supposed to open the door, especially…” The woman following the child to the doorway, stops short when she sees the Hound. And Sansa’s breath stops when she sees the woman step into the light. She’s dressed in a dress so shear, it appears to be a bedsheet. Her hair is red, but not like Sansa’s. A blinding, too-bright red that cannot be natural. And her lips are painted a similar color.

This woman is a whore. The Hound has taken her to a brothel.

“Penny,” the Hound’s voice breaks in, desperately. “Please...I need...help.” He’s fumbling for words and the whore called Penny purses her red lips for a moment. She finally glances over at Sansa, looking her up and down, and Sansa is very aware in that moment how she must look. Bedraggled hair, whipped and unbrushed. Her crumpled gown that is surely ruined and the heavy cloak of the King’s Guard. They are fugitives. Sansa’s heart begins to hammer wildly. There are no safe places. Anyone could be bought. Especially women who sold themselves anyway.

Penny reaches out both hands and drags them both inside, where her small daughter is jumping on her bed. “You must be gone by nightfall,” Penny says, and Sansa doesn’t know if that is a sanctuary or a head start from the City Watch. She does notice that Penny has not asked the Hound any questions, and he is already moving around the room, searching for something, Sansa does not know what. There is not much in this room. Penny’s mussed bed, two hard chairs and in between them, a corncob doll wrapped in a rag strewn on the floor. A small cupboard that could not have held many clothes. 

The Hound is leaning down, talking to the woman in concentrated whispers while the little girl abandons her curiosity of the strangers and goes back to her doll. And Sansa stands awkwardly just inside the door, the creeping daylight still very dim in the tiny room. He stands back up to his imposing full height and meets Sansa’s eye from across the room, and crosses the floor in three steps. “I’m going,” he says simply, and it sends a swift panic through her. 

Had he just sold her? She’d heard of such things, and she was a highborn girl from a noble house (a virgin), sure to fetch a fine price. And then, with no change to his expression, he adds, “I’ll be back later.” And he leaves through the door, ducking his head on the way out. 

Sansa finds the breath knocked out of her at the closed door. What does he mean, that he’ll return later? For his payment? She fights tears as her breath threatens to come in panicked, heaving spurts. What has she done? Between her choices of being raped and tortured by Stannis’s men, tortured and beaten (and probably eventually raped) by Joffrey and his men, or sold as a hostage, she had put all of her faith into Sandor Clegane and now what?

The woman Penny crosses over to her, putting an arm around her in a motherly sort of way, but Sansa stiffens. “Come now, dearie, it’s a shame to cover that pretty red hair, but it must be done.” Her _hair_. Her Tully red hair, her mother’s hair. They were going to take that from her too. Sansa’s shoulders crumble and the tears fall in hot sobs. “What’s this now? Come now, it will grow out eventually, it’s just safer for now.”

“What...what does it matter if I’m _safe_ , when you’re just going to have me…” Sansa finds she can’t say the words, doesn’t know _what_ to say, but glances over to the bed, where little Amarei has crawled up under the covers and is singing a song to her dolly, around a thumb firmly planted in her mouth. 

“Have you...oh dearie, I’ll have you do _nothing_ and neither will Sandor,” Penny steps back a bit, giving Sansa some space to herself and Sansa wraps her own arms around herself, suddenly cold to the point of teeth chattering. “Sandor told me...you’re going North, and I’m afraid that hair will be recognizable from a mile away. There’s nothing to be done for him, being as tall as he is, but you must be cloaked, as best you can.” Penny pulls one of the spindly chairs to the middle of the room and gestures for her to sit while she opens the cupboard, taking out a pot of something or other. Uncovering it and a peculiarly tart smell reaches Sansa’s nostrils. “Have a seat, dearie, this will take some time.”

*

“There, there, it’s not as bad as all that, is it?” 

Sansa couldn’t believe her eyes when she got her first glimpse of her new appearance. Her hair was a rich, dark brown, nearly black and still shining with wet from Penny washing it out. Her first thought when she saw her dark hair was of Arya, and that she’d never looked more like a Stark. She’d even been able to take a lukewarm hip bath as well, while the dark, pungent paste had coated her hair for most of the day. While she sat and waited for her hair to darken, she watched Penny bustle around the small room, doing the general tidying up and caring for her daughter, quickly leaving and going around to the other apartments and rooms, checking on the other girls. It seemed she was the proprietor, in charge, and whatever else went on here, she was a sound a deft businesswoman and a kind and fair manager.

A brothel in the daytime did not seem much different from what Sansa imagined she would see in the servant women’s apartments in the Red Keep. Cooking the daily meals, doing the general upkeep of the building, and caring for children, who ran through the courtyard, played games, sang songs, threw tantrums and ran to their mothers for hugs and kisses. While the royal masses warred several miles away, the life of small folk seemed to go on in relative normalcy. And Sansa learned what ties Sandor had to this place.

“He worked here, ten years ago, maybe more,” Penny had said, as she was combing out her hair for the last time. Her voice was softer when she was talking about the past. “Scared off the rowdier customers, fetched the doctor when needed, that sort of thing. Took care of the girls really nicely, even if he is a grumpy bugger.” Penny laughed then, and Sansa had wondered at how well he might have taken care of her. He trusted her, that was certain, and Penny had helped them without question. What she must feel she owes him...what Sansa now owes her.

She reaches a hand over her shoulder to cover Penny’s slightly roughened hand. “Thank you,” she says, at a loss for anything else. She wonders if she’s ever genuinely helped anyone in her life. Penny tuts kindly and continues brushing.

It’s dusk when he returns. His hair is wet, he has seemingly also bathed somehow and is carrying a bunch of fowl in each hand. He hands one to Penny, and spares a quick glance to Sansa, eyes inscrutable. Sansa busies herself with gathering together the little pack Penny had prepared for them- an extra change of clothes for Sansa (she was wearing a rough but serviceable plain dress that Sansa suspected was her own), a twice mended tunic that was actually large enough for him, and a few heels of coarse brown bread, some dried fruit and four fresh green apples. It was a generous bounty, Sansa knew and she wished she had something of value to give her, or even her child.

She thinks of the fine china doll still on her bed at King’s Landing that her father had died thinking she hated.

But the Hound pays her in game and Sansa turns away in shame when she sees the flash of coin he passes to Penny, and then her mouth rounds slightly when she sees him pause and bashfully pass something in the direction of the child, who was dutifully eating her porridge dinner. It is a little wooden fawn, intricately carved, even with tiny chips in the carving to show the spots she would have along her spine. Sansa is so touched and surprised at the delicacy of the work and the thoughtfulness of the gift, she cannot speak.

She has not been sold. She has been helped with no expectation in return, and now she understands why Penny did not hesitate to help this man. He must have protected her at some point. This man protected soft things.

This man, he had a name. And Sansa would know him by it from now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow. So I said...”updating should go quickly.” Oh me. 😐 One of the things that got in the way is the only way I have to update is on my phone, but it’s really just life. So. Will update when I can.
> 
> So now we know what happened (at least in the show’s version) and it was just...yeah. :/
> 
> So I’m going back to this, and I have a few other irons in the fire. What was most interesting to me about this idea, originally, was taking Sansa at her most fragile and vulnerable and Sandor at his most feral (and vulnerable) and both of them learning and growing to meet somewhere in the middle. So, here I go again (slowly), and see if I can accomplish that.

He has dreamt of Sansa Stark for countless nights, and now that she is _his_ , in a sense (his responsibility, his to protect and provide for), he finds the reality...puzzling.

As he knew she would be, she is unaccustomed to sleeping on the rough ground, to riding hard through the night, mud spattering her in the face. Her bath at Penny’s was long forgotten at this point, and she always seemed to be cold, for all that she was the Northerner. He is unused to the ways of women, especially soft, pampered women who know nothing of the world outside castles and servants, and it’s grating to have to explain everything to her, to provide time for her modesty, her inexperience.

Early one morning, he rises with the slight twitch of a twig breaking somewhere close. He’d always been a light sleeper, but being on the road with the little bird and her helplessness had hardly allowed for him to close his eyes. If they were set upon, if he were ever to be outnumbered by too many, if his throat were slit in his sleep and she was taken...there were too many if’s and only one of him.

A man and woman, further down the stream from where he and the little bird had made their night. A peddler and his wife, he suspected when he eyed the cart stocked high and full with odds and goods. Hanging off the corner on one side was a soft pair of boots with leather soles, plain and homely, but just right for a common woman who walked many miles over her days. The ridiculous silk slippers Little Bird had on her feet since they fled the Red Keep were worn through now, and he could see her wince, tears in her eyes, every time she got down from the horse and had to walk along the rocky stream bed.

They are almost nothing to overpower, and he is not especially rough. They will wake with no more than an aching head and he cannot carry so much away from them that it will make a difference in their return when they go to sell their wares. He feels no guilt when he makes his way back to Little Bird’s side, who is still sound asleep, her smudged cheek pillowed on her hand and brow creased with worry. She’s been hungry too, he knows, and he’d managed to take some dried fruit and even some cheese wrapped in cloth.

“Little bird,” he rasps. “Wake up.” They do not talk much, other than what is necessary to keep them moving forward. He was never a chatterer to begin with, and never knew what to say to courtly girls anyway. The crude japes he used to say to her feel even more false on his tongue now, so he is mostly silent.

But touching her, that’s another story.

He touches her all day long; taking her by the hand, warming her arms with his big hands, the utter torture of her shape molded against him through the long hours on horseback. And laying beside her at night, huddled over her as she sleeps fitfully and he dozes. She allows it without complaint, too. Even reaches back for him at times, but doesn’t say much either.

She blinks, stirring from his prodding and seems pleased by the new boots. He notices that she does hesitate for a moment before removing the tatters of her slippers. They are the last fine, pretty thing she has and he knows such things used to be of great importance to her. But she tosses them aside like an apple core and busies herself with lacing up the leather thongs. He moves to help her up onto Stranger’s back, but she shakes her head. “No, these are much more comfortable, thank you. The poor beast, we’ve pushed him so hard. Do you think we could walk for a morning?”

Sandor rubs Stranger’s thickly muscled neck down, running a hand over his jaw. The beard has grown thicker. In the Red Keep, the damn queen had insisted on some modicum of grooming for the Kingsguard (though much couldn’t be helped for his face), and he was glad to not have to bother. Glad to cover as much of the ravaged flesh as he could, though he knew it made him look all the more wild and savage.

“Shouldn’t do any harm,” he answered her. He’d set Stranger at a punishing pace for nearly a week now. It was kind of her to offer that he rest.

The pace she sets is achingly slow to him, his usually long stride cut frustratingly short. Stranger knickers beside him too. Seems as though he preferred to kick off and run hard rather than amble by the stream, he was getting restless. Sandor gives him a little nudge and Stranger stops his soft whinnying, reluctantly easing his gait.

The Little Bird doesn’t walk in a straight line, as she’s gazing up and then off to the side, not in a way to take notice of their surroundings, but to follow whatever fancy thought ran through her head. She sees things like the colors of the leaves beginning to change and hears things like the soft whisper of their booted feet on the forest floor. At one point, she stoops down to the ground and comes back up with a bunch of wild aster. It is all one smooth, fluid movement, and Sandor has to keep himself from groaning. How could a person live like that?

She turns over her shoulder at his grunt. Her eyes are sharper somehow, with her hair darkened. It makes her skin look paler, almost translucent where the blue veins run close to the surface. “I’m sorry, I...are there...are there any more apples?” It was a meek voice whenever she did speak to him.

(He remembers a different voice. 

_And maybe he’ll give me yours._ )

“No.” No, they’d been gone yesterday, along with the last of the quail he’d caught near Penny’s.

She nods, and something twists inside of him. She hasn’t asked for much, he has to say it true.

“Father gave part of the orchard at Winterfell to me when I was ten,” she continues on. Her voice is low and melodic and he remembers asking for a song, asking with a sneer and with fists clenched tightly with want of her. He follows the tune of her voice and wonders if this is at long last her answer. “He gave each of us a piece of the land on our nameday, it was tradition. Well, all except Rickon, he’s still-“

She goes very quiet all of a sudden, and Sandor wonders if she is contemplating if that last little brother of hers is ‘still’ anything at all any more. “But all to the rest of us. Even Jon. The apples...my apples were from a special seed Father had for a long time, from some travels long ago.” She pauses and Sandor wants to choke himself with the pleasure he finds in her voice. Even if he cannot see what this story has to do with anything at all that they need in this moment in time.

She smiles at some far off memory, and her eyes look very blue. He looks away, down at the mud at his feet. “When the trees blossomed, the apples were a soft golden, dappled with pink, and they were very sweet. The children loved them.”

“Why are you telling me this?” He snaps, wincing at the sting in her eyes, the hurt way her lips droop in a pout. But he can’t take it. Can’t take the meaningless chatter at how lovely and sweet her life had been before she’d been stolen away to the South under false promises. How had this world turned so upside down that this innocent young girl had no one to protect her but a scarred dog like him?

This is why they don’t talk.

After that, they’re silent for a long time, the Little Bird looking somewhere into the past at a better life, and him silently hating himself. After a while she shoots him a nervous look. “Um...pardon...I…”

He doesn’t know why she flutters so when she needs to make her water. The first night out from Penny’s, she was nearly in tears by the time she begged him to stop and then it was another ordeal when she wouldn’t let him follow her. He was loathe to let her out of his sight but her maiden’s modesty was a fight for which he didn’t have the stamina. He nodded her ahead, and leaned back against a tree to wait.

Stopping, and being still, he finds his eyes are falling closed. It has been a week since he has properly closed his eyes and slept for more than a few minutes at a time and it is wearing on him. Light filters in through trees that are still mostly full, autumn has not yet begun its true shedding, creating little shadows of leaves blowing and birds industriously flying overhead. They have to get ready for winter, just like everyone else. Sandor’s eyes close against the little chirps and tweets.

And then he hears her scream.

It’s not from far away. Any exhaustion he’d felt was gone, and he thundered toward the sound, as heavy and forceful as a bear on attack. 

There are three of them. Two holding her against a tree, one standing back, taunting and making japes. Big men, to all gang up on one small girl. 

He puts his sword through the first man before he can get his cock out and grabs the other two at once, throwing one to the ground with a hard force and a swift kick to the gut to keep him down for a moment while he snapped the other’s neck. The one on the ground gets his knife, his throat slit and he is done. They all are. Sandor heaves a breath that he had been holding since he heard her terrified scream. 

And then he looks at her, crumpled between the two corpses, and without his permission, his mind flashes back to that day by the port in King’s Landing, and almost the exact same thing happening to her. She looks very small curled on her side, shaking as she looks up at him. Her dress is torn in the front, allowing the slightest bit of creamy curve to peek through. There is even an almost identical cut on her cheek. “Little bird,” his voice is hoarse and unsteady, and he searches for the words he needs. “Did they...are you hurt?”

She shakes her head, and he reaches down with both hands and pulls her up to him, off her feet and carries her back to Stranger who had followed closely behind him, throws her up astride on the saddle and swings up behind her before she can protest to keep her legs closed. He kicks off the horse, teeth set in a tight line and his arms firmly keeping her pressed right against him. She’s stiff for a moment but then relaxes into him, the uneven motion of the horse. He thinks she might be crying but concentrates on moving them forward, forward, forward.

*

Sansa wonders if the rest of her life will be spent running away from dangerous men who are trying to rape her. And the moments in between where she is beholden to strangers to be fed, to be kept safe, to be shown the way. She doesn’t know how long they were riding when they finally stopped but the sun was much higher, the day so much warmer. At least last mid-day.

He’s still breathing hard, still battle ready. And she had felt him, low against her. It’s in all men. Even him.

“You...you killed them.”

“Aye.”

He doesn’t look up from where he is taking apart the knot in his horse’s reins. Sansa stares, incredulous. She’s counted that he has killed six people directly because of her. She remembers his words. _Killing’s the sweetest thing there is._

“You...you don’t value anything, you can’t just...kill a person every day, you…” Sansa looked down, to the soft, fresh brown boots on her feet, and then back at him. “Did…”

He shakes his head but rolls his eyes. “They’ll be fine, just knocked down.”

“And those men, they could have had families, they could have-“

“Those _vermin_ would have raped you three times over. You, so concerned for their wives and children. They weren’t though, were they? Why should you?” His face is twisted in a cruel sneer, she has never seen such rage. “And you won’t be going off on your own anymore, neither.”

The indignity of his words strikes her like a blow. All that had been removed from her, all that she had been forced to do, he could _not_ take that from her. She feels an urge to stomp her foot. “You cannot just _kill_ everyone-“

“I _can_ though, I can and I _will_.” He moves so fast he gasps, his large hands closing around her shoulders. He bends to look her right in the eye, those wild gray eyes of his stormy. "If it's between you living or them, they die. If it's between you eating or them, they die. If it's them trying to get in between those sweet thighs, they die." 

“What if it’s you trying to get between…” Sansa’s voice wavered, unable to repeat his vulgar words. 

He squeezed her shoulders and Sansa swallowed. He would snap her in two if he so chose. “I will kill every last person in the world, if it would keep you safe.”

Sansa throws his hands off, with a great grunt of effort. “How can you say such things? That you will _kill_ for me, kill _every last person_ , when you don’t even _like_ me?”

“Like you?” He makes a sound as though he is going to laugh, but there is little mirth in his face. “Liking you, liking _anything_ has naught to do with protecting you. And I will. You can be sure of that.”

Sansa finds her own chest heaving too, her face only inches from his, the contrasts in the sharp angles and ragged flesh stealing her breath for a moment. She had never been so close before. Afraid to be, at first, but after she had lost her initial fear, she had come to realize how afraid he also was. He did not want anyone so near to him. 

And so close, that fear is palpable, visible. What did he feel? A breeze flutters against her, and Sansa remembers her torn bodice. She closes it with her hands and turns to look in the saddlebags for something to mend it.

She can’t get a proper angle of course, and does not want to have to take her blouse off and is taking some time to maneuver the horrible, loose stitch closed. Septa Mordane would be horrified. After some time, he sits near her on the ground. “You do have a singing voice, so it seems, Little Bird.”

Sansa pauses, her hand stilled. “Please...don’t call me that...it reminds me of the queen, and...Joffrey.” She says the name of the king under her breath, a slight bit of nausea that came with thoughts of her formerly betrothed. The things he had done to her, the whispers of the things he had done elsewhere in the castle. How much longer could she have stayed in the Red Keep without becoming completely broken?

He’s silent, looking struck and she wonders at how he must think of her. From above, she can hear the _weep, weep_ , weep of a cardinal calling to its mate. She looks from left to right but cannot find the bird itself, and she feels real disappointment. She loved cardinals, thought them the prettiest of birds, and so loved pretty things. 

“Cardinals don’t fly south in winter.” She looks back down at him. It seems that no words leave his mouth unless absolutely necessary (usually along the lines of an order; _stay quiet, stay down, hurry up, girl_ ). He did not use chatter as a means to fill the silence, that was for sure. Sansa puts her sewing needle down and listens, sitting back to look at him.

“Yes I know,” Sansa answers. “We had dozens of them in Winterfell, Rickon loved going out to look for the nests.” Sansa gives up on finishing the stitch properly and simply ties the thread in a knot on the end. She shrugs and lowers her voice. “I used to like them.”

“They’re a hardy bird. They belong in the cold, in winter. Pretty, red birds.”

Sansa is touched at his clumsy attempt at pleasant conversation. He is _trying_ , whatever his reasoning is. He is trying to keep her safe and is now trying to make certain that her life is not completely miserable. It’s much more than anyone has done in a very long time. He is trying and, now so must she.

“We should go to the Vale, go to the Eyrie.” He pauses for a moment in surprise. Her having _ideas_ had not really been part of the arrangement thus far. “Winterfell is too far. And the Greyjoys...we’ll need help. My aunt, my cousin- he’s the Lord of the Vale now, they will help us.”

Sandor sighs, and digs through his saddlebag. He hands her a dried pear. “Your brother is in the Riverlands, and your mother with him. Would you not go there?”

Sansa shakes her head. “We don’t know where Robb is; we could make for Riverrun, my grandfather would offer safety, but there is a Lannister army somewhere in the Riverlands and your…” she pauses. “They’ll know you at first glance.”

He grimaces. “This wretched face.”

Sansa winces and shakes her head again. “You...you’re one of the biggest men in the Seven Kingdoms, they’ll know you. From the Eyrie, we can send a raven to Robb. Get food and supplies. My aunt is a Tully, family will always come first. She will give us aid, no question.”

He’s quiet for a long moment but then heaves to his feet and begins repacking the bags, straightening the saddle on the horse’s back and checking the tick for security. He says nothing else and Sansa lifts herself from the ground. Does this mean he’s in agreement with her? And her plan is a sound one?

He climbs up into the stirrup and reaches a hand down for her to swing up behind him. Before he can kick the horse off, Sansa touches her hand over his, grabbing the reins. He looks over his shoulder at her, turning his unburnt profile towards her and she is struck at this side of his face. He might have been called handsome if he wasn’t so severely intimidating. Not handsome the way she found Joffrey or Loras Tyrell handsome, not in a shining, youthful way, but in some way that reminded her of fresh snow and her last glimpse of Winterfell as she set off on her adventure South. It has taken her so long to see the beauty in the North, and now the memory of ice and snow is what warms her.

_You saved my life. You saved my virtue. Why do you keep saving me?_

But she finds she cannot say those words and so she simply says, “Sandor.”

He’s not a hound, he’s not a dog, he’s a man. And if nothing else, she can remind him of that.

“You still sing,” he turns in the seat, reaching around her by turning from his waist. His hand comes up to cap around the crown of her head. “It’s a different song but the same tune.” For once, there is no mocking to his tone, and his thumb brushes the side of her brow, the rough digit catching on the fine little hairs framing her face, that are still a bright, vibrant shade. 

_“Red Bird.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Penny must be credited to lifeofsnark, who came up with this bit of Sandor’s backstory in her Song Of The Hound.


End file.
